First week

Hello!

We have already been living in Naro Moru for over a week. Time flies!

Last wednesday we joined a meeting with the CFA (community forest association) of the Naro Moru forest. An organisation that wants to build an ecolodge in the forest set up an environmental impact assessment meeting with the locals. It’s nice to see that the people are busy with improving ecotourism in the area here. In the afternoon we walked to the Naro Moru River Lodge. It’s a luxurious place with a pool, restaurant and a tennis field. We had a drink there and made an appointment with the assistant manager of the lodge, so we can learn more about the process of starting up an ecotouristic activity in this area.

On Thursday we walked to the Leisure Lodge with Ann and Peter. There is a big difference between the lodges and the areas around it where the locals live. The locals houses are mostly wooden sheds, whereas the lodges are made of bricks and cover large area's of ground.

On Friday we prepared our research for Monday: we thouroughly read the Forest Management Plan (FMP) of the Kabaru Forest and made a planning for the next couple of days. We also had a skype-meeting with Dirk, our supervisor in Holland.

The next day it was weekend! We had time to go to Nanyuki, a bigger city to the north. We went there by matatu, unbelievable how many people can fit in one small bus. In Nanyuki we bought food and other stuff. We had our lunch in a typical Kenian restaurant: a shed with plastic chairs. Some cats were eating the food that fell on the ground. It was cheap (25 shilling for chapatti, that’s around 20 eurocent) and a nice experience! On Sunday we relaxed and Jorinde and Ellen walked to Naro Moru and back, a two hour walk. The boys got a haircut from Ann, they look totally different now. In exchange for the haircut Bauke and Martijn made dinner that night.

Monday was our first day we saw one of our forests, the Kabaru Forest. On our way to the forest we saw our first monkeys!

Some members of the CFA and the forester showed us three sites that would be interesting for tourists. A lot of interesting sites are described in the FMP of the Kabaru Forest. We wanted to see as many sites as possible. They showed us a Mau Mau cave, an elephant breeding site and the rainbow trout hatchery. 

The Mau Mau cave

rainbow trout hatchery 

During this tour we saw two dik-diks: small antilopes. The walk took us two hours and would be very interesting for other tourists. Right know we're working on a plan to establish and exploit this walk.
A member of the CFA, a specialist in ecotourism, took us to his house afterwards to show us pictures of some more interesting places. We had a cup of tea with real cow milk. We will visit the forest again next week to see the remaining sites of interest.

Kwaheri!

At the guesthouse

Jambo!
We are at the guesthouse in Naro Moru. We drove to Naro Moru yesterday after our meeting with Bernard and Ema. We went to their office in Nairobi in the morning to talk about the project and to meet each other. It was very nice to get to know them. We talked about the planning and the definition of ecotourism and the roll of HSHC in the project. After the short meeting we went by car to the north. It was a 4 hour drive. We saw the Mount Kenya during the drive! When we arrived at the guesthouse we met Ann, Peter and Charles. Ann and Peter both work for HSHC, they are staying with us at the guesthouse.

There are also 4 other volunteers here at the guesthouse, Didi from Holland, Martha from Poland, Ingrid form the US and Andreas from Belgium.
We ate dinner with them and watched a documentary and the news at 9 o'clock local time.
Today we had a meeting with Charles, he will supervise us during the project. He told us a lot about the forests and the different stakeholders. After the meeting we took a walk to the Naro Moru River.
Tomorrow we will meet Paul (a member of the community forest association CFA). He will supervise us in the field.
In a few days we will update you about the next days. Bye!

Arrived in Kenya!!

Jambo! We are in Kenya!
And it's amazing. Nairobi is actually a nice city during the day. The flight was good and we were picked up from the airport by the taxidriver Pepe. We had a good night sleep and today we have just wandered around the city streets. We saw the view of Nairobi from the roof the Kenyatta Conference Centre (27 stories high!) and it had the only helicopter platform of all buildings in Kenya. We could not see Mount Kenya, it was a bit cloudy. The weather is good, not too humid and bits of sun, about 25 degrees Celsius. And the people are very nice: Karibu Kenya!

We all have a Kenyan phone number now, which is much cheaper to use for us.
Jorinde: +254706532447
Bauke: +254706532445
Martijn: +254706532449
Ellen: +254706532462

Tonight we are going to have dinner with some other students from the TU Delft who have been here since september. Tomorrow we're going to visit the National Museum.

Monday morning we have a meeting with the Help Self Help Centre and then we drive off to Naro Moru. We'll let you know when we get there!

All is well! Greetings and love,

Bauke, Jorinde, Ellen, Martijn